The Girl in the Fireplace

It's not perfect, but there's something wonderful about The Girl in the Fireplace, Steven Moffat's second contribution to the new series. Like The Empty Child, the plot is fuelled by mystery, but the main joy of this episode is a series of incongruities: a fireplace on a spaceship, robots under the bed, a horse in space. Moffat presses these two distinct Doctor Who environments (the Future in Space, and Period Costume Drama) so closely together that characters can literally step from one to the other in a series of breathtaking juxtapositions that are a visual feast all by themselves. In fact the ship is just as beautiful as the palace, and that final shot that reveals all is positively sumptuous - and brilliant storytelling.

Then there's the humour. This made us all laugh out loud and it may be the cleverest, funniest story since City of Death. The cleverness is important - it makes it funnier. This isn't Mickey running into a wall (which was, admittedly, funny), but a series of great gags that develop from the setting. And then, finally, the superlative line with which the Doctor talks the clockwork robot to death: "Listen, I'm not winding you up..."

As well as laughs there are genuine scares. Although confused and bit half-arsed, the clockwork antagonists are definitely creepy, their squiffy logic leading them to disassemble their human crew. They're also responsible for the first great fright of the new series as one of them grasps at the Doctor from under the bed. Such a simple idea: put the monster under the bed, but it is executed so brilliantly that William jumped clean out of his seat.

And romance! Well, this is the nub of it, isn't it? It's a beautiful little love story, told in fast-forward as the Doctor races through Reinette's life. Really, it's so brief, but despite that it still manages to feel weighty, to matter. If it felt insubstantial, if it didn't convince, then this episode would never work - but instead we are left with the Doctor alone with his letter in the TARDIS, heart-broken: an incredibly poignant image.

Except, that, it doesn't make any sense. Compared with the episodes around it, The Girl in the Fireplace feels like a sidetrip into another universe, one where the Doctor isn't inexplicably mooning all over Rose, and she, in turn, is actually being nice to Mickey. Five minutes ago Rose was slagging off Sarah Jane and desperately hoping Mickey wouldn't tag along to play gooseberry. Now she watches on with apparent equanimity as her Time Lord crush abandons her to live in 18th century France with another man's mistress. There's a good reason for all this, of course, which is that RTD never rewrote Moffat's scripts. If anyone else had turned this in, you can be sure that Rose would have ended up being blisteringly jealous of the Doctor's attentions, and he would have to have visibly dealt with the idea that he was somehow two-timing Rose with Reinette. As it stands, Rose has a good episode. She and Mickey have some larks on the spaceship and get into to trouble; she gets a couple of good jokes and a lovely scene where she and Reinette come to understand each other. In other words, she behaves like a normal companion. It really suits her.

The unfortunate upshot of Moffat's licence is that The Girl in the Fireplace highlights how annoying and ridiculous the Doctor/Rose love affair is. Taste is subjective, of course, and I can understand that Rose might be a laugh to hang out with, but I just can't see her as the Doctor's ideal woman: Reinette, River, Romana, heck, even Cameca, or Nerys Hughes from Kinda, all seem like a much better match. Ah well, we'll get to Doomsday eventually.

Is there something repetitive about Moffat's scripts? Well, yes. The ticking trick in Reinette's room is the same trick we had twice in The Doctor Dances (the tape and the typewriter), and we'll get it again in Silence in the Library ("Then why are there five people in this room?") - but it's such a good trick: showing the audience everything and then making them realise they have misunderstood what they've been looking at. And, yes, the Doctor/Reinette relationship echoes those with Amy and River Song, but so what - you might as well complain that Terry Nation was obsessed with plagues, or authoritarianism.

But there are some dodgy moments. I'm not sure we'll see the Doctor creeping around young girl's bedrooms whilst they sleep ever again. And I hope we never get a repeat of the shocking scene where the Doctor returns drunk from a party. I don't mind him being drunk. I mind him pretending to be drunk for no good reason and then announcing he has suddenly got some magic juice to pour over the robot to stop it killing everybody. It feels like sleight of hand.

Still, overall, very good indeed. William felt able to give it a 10 and Chris managed a 9. Will felt sorry for Reinette ("If I was her, only seeing the Doctor occasionally, I would be very sad." I'll explain to him about 1989 to 2005). Chris said, "That was a great story. It had complicated ideas but they were told in a simple way." And then, the perspicacious so-and-so that he is, he added, "It was a bit weird that Rose didn't mind wasn't it?"


NEXT TIME...